Tim Pawlenty plays Southwest Airlines flight attendant

Yessir, I'll be right there with your seatbelt extension. Can I count on your vote?

Tim Pawlenty has found a new way to drum up name recognition: He's going to conquer America one commercial airline flight at a time.

Southwest Airlines has confirmed that the achingly-close to official presidential candidate stepped to the microphone aboard one of its flights yesterday and helped out with the pre-flight jibber jabber.

"One of our Flight Attendants playfully engaged Mr. Pawlenty as she was making her pre-flight announcements. He was a good sport and, having traveled with us before and knowing the routine, he jumped in and offered to help finish the announcements, which he did," Southwest spokesman Chris Mainz told Politico. "We like to have fun with our announcements and engage our customers, and this one just happened to be the former governor of Minnesota."

Maybe if this whole White House gambit goes down in a ball of flames, he has a future dressed in a bad suit while serving coffee and cocktails at 32,000 feet.